


Run

by itsallAvengers



Series: 101 Ways to Fall In Love [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, BAMF Tony Stark, Bar Fight, Fights, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy, I Was in M A X I M U M O V E R D RI V E, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Tony Stark, Pining, Pining Steve Rogers, Protective Steve Rogers, Running Away, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Uncontrollable Laughing Fits, bad decision-making, its 5 am have mercy, pining!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 12:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8668426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Steve took a long breath, shutting his eyes and putting two fingers up the bridge of his nose.“So you’re telling me… you decided it would be a good idea… to start a fight when you were outnumbered… twenty to one?” He asked shortly.Tony grinned then, and nodded his head.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based of the one-word prompt 'run'. Feel fee to leave any prompts you might have in the comments!

When Steve had finally crawled into bed at 2 a.m. after pretty much 24 hours of studying and work, he really hadn’t expected to ever get out of it again. College could wait, food could wait. He was intending to sleep for the rest of his life.  
God, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d got a solid eight hours of rest. If it wasn’t an art project he had to hand in the next day, it was Tony ringing him or visiting at some ungodly hour and demanding his attention.

Not that Steve really minded that too much. But it was still a pain when Tony forgot that normal people (people like Steve) actually needed sleep to function.

He was halfway into blessed, beautiful unconsciousness, when suddenly his mind was pulled annoyingly back into alertness at the sound of a buzzing to his left. He slowly opened his heavy eyelids and rolled over, intending to immediately reject the call and then turn back and hopefully fall deeply into sleep once more.

Then he glanced at the caller ID, and at the ridiculously huge doe-eyes paired with a complete mess of dark hair that was spiked wildly in all directions, and he groaned once again very loudly, before slamming a finger down on to the little green button and pulling the phone up to his ear.

“I just want you to know that I hate you so, _so_ much right now. Honestly. Fuck you. It’s 2am. Be normal. Please. Go to bed.”

“Bed is for those with nothing better to do, Steve, you know that.”

“Tony, you better have a real good reason for calling me at 2am, or I swear this is the last you will ever hear of me.”

“you could not live your life without my presence in it, Rogers, and you know it,”

 _“Tony!_ ”

“Okay, okay, fine. Right, here’s the thing. You’re at your apartment, right?”

“Correct…”

“Yeah, well-“  
Tony’s voice cut out suddenly, and there was the sound of scuffling and a dull thud on the other end of the line, before Tony came back on slightly more out of breath than before,  
“- I’m like, a thirty second sprint away from you, at Sam’s bar. I may or may not have-“  
Another pause, and the faraway sound of a yell,  
“- started a bar fight, which I may or not be out of my depth in. I may or may not need you to step in with your super dooper muscles before I get crushed by three very-“  
More scuffles,  
“- angry assholes.”

Steve had leapt out of bed at the word ‘fight’, yanking his sweatpants off the side of his chair and pulling them on hurriedly, stopping to grab a shirt as he flew out of the door with his phone still held tightly to his ear.

“Jesus, Tony, _what the hell were you thinking?_ I’m on my way, do not get yourself killed, I will be _so_ mad-“

“I’ll do my very best, Steve. Okay, I got to go beat up some bodybuilders, wish me luck.”

“Fucking Chri- TONY FUCKING STARK, I’M GOING TO KILL Y-“

Tony hung up. Bastard.

Steve was jumping down the stairs five at a time, his panic giving him an extra burst of speed as he flew down to ground level and out of the doors. Stupid, dumb, _reckless_ Tony, who hated all form of exercise and was too small and thin for a person his age- apparently pitting himself against three muscly guys.

Fucking _great_.

Steve was very much aware of the injuries one could get from initiating fights with people far too big to take- until a few years ago, he’d been sickly as all hell, and about half the size he was now, but still just as confrontational.  
Luckily, he’d grown about a foot and gained some pretty impressive muscle as he hit puberty- but ever since their first year, when he’d bumped into Tony on the corridor and sent various papers flying everywhere, the other boy had been small. And Steve worried about him enough as it was; Tony barely ate food unless prompted and didn’t sleep for days on end, and now appeared to be getting himself into _bar fights_. Jesus Christ.

 

He knew it wasn’t his job to worry.  
Well, obviously, he was his friend, so it was okay to be _concerned_. It probably wasn’t acceptable, however, to have Tony constantly in his thoughts, taking up all space in his mind and leaving no room for concentration until Steve was sure that the genius had eaten a meal, or gotten some sleep or had a drink that wasn’t coffee.

 _That_ … that was probably a little overboard.

 

In all honesty, however, Steve was man enough to admit that he’d been pretty much head-over-heels in love with Tony since their fist meeting, when both of them had been nothing more than two 17 year olds with scrappy natures and an ability to start fights with pretty much anyone.

Tony had collided with him from around a corner, sending both of them sprawling as the impact knocked them off their feet. Steve had gotten off lightly, his weight causing him to simply stumble backwards into a locker. Tony, on the other hand, ended up on the floor, the crumpled pieces of paper that had been clutched in his hands flying all over the place.

he'd pulled himself up and turned to glare menacingly at Steve. That was the first time he had actually looked at the stranger’s face, and _boy_ , Steve knew at that moment right there that he was screwed.

Tony had yelled at Steve, and Steve had yelled back, both of them adamant it was the other’s fault (to this day, Tony swore it was Steve who was the one who had not been looking. Tony was a liar). They were so busy shouting at one another that they had failed to get to class on time, and when Steve had begun shouting at Tony for that too, the boy had rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone.  
Thirty seconds later, Tony declared Steve latemark-free, thanks to his ‘first-class hacking skills’- and that was when Steve discovered the person he had just floored was actually one of the most intelligent seventeen-year-olds in the world.

That had been two years ago. Steve _still_ got that same somersaulting feeling in his stomach whenever he saw Tony walk into a room- if anything, it had only become worse as the years had gone by. At this point, Steve was dismally aware that he was probably going to be in love with his best friend for the rest of eternity, and that his best friend would never return those feelings.

It was just one of those unchangeable facts of life- he loved tony Stark; Tony Stark did not love him back.

So, of course, when Steve hears down the phone the sounds of his stupid friend in the middle of a bar fight, the ridiculous over-protective streak flares up like a wildfire, and he’s sprinting out of the door ready to fight with whichever bastard dared try and lay a hand on Tony in a heartbeat.

He burst into the darkness outside, unlaced sneakers skidding along the floor as he sprinted across the grass and toward the other side, where he knew Sam’s Bar was. Tony was right- with Steve’s pace, he would reach the bar in just under thirty seconds, and Steve was hoping Tony could keep himself out of major trouble until then.  
As scrawny as he was, Steve didn’t doubt he could hold his own. He might not have been strong or tall, but the guy had a brain faster than lightning, and Steve had seen him use _science_ to bring people twice his size down before.

 

“Simple trigonometry, my friend,” Tony had grinned at Steve, as he propelled a wrench into the side of a wall and sent it ricocheting right into someone’s temple, knocking them flat out.

Resisting the urge to simply push Tony up against that wall and have his way with him right there and then had been the hardest moment of Steve’s entire life.

 

To his left, the murky image of the building Steve was looking for loomed into view, and he quickly turned the corner and stumbled to a halt outside the doors as he was met with four people, all guarding the entrance in.

Not thinking twice, Steve sprung out of the shadows toward them, tackling the first person and slamming them into the second, sending them both to the floor. He bent low and twisted around, dodging a wild punch thrown at his temple and replying with a fierce uppercut that probably cracked a few teeth.

He felt a painful blow to his stomach and he grunted in pain, before grabbing the foot that was responsible and pulling as hard as he could, watching in satisfaction as the fourth and final obstacle was removed from the equation, and he continued through the doors without a backward glance.

The bar was in chaos. Steve knew Sam well, and he felt a brief moment of sorrow for his friend and the cleanup job he would have to do for this, before he pulled his mind back to the matter at hand. Around him, everyone was fully engaged, and Steve could see there was a definite split in the room- one half of the bar trying to push the other half out of the doors, the other desperately attempting to push back.

Steve didn’t know why, he didn’t know how, and more importantly he didn’t care, because he couldn’t see Tony anywhere, and he was pushing through the throng of people in search, but those familiar dark eyes and darker hair were nowhere to be seen.

If the fucker had gotten himself hurt, Steve was going to lose his shi-

“Take _THAT_ , you disgusting creature!”

Ah. There he was.

Spinning on his heel, Steve watched as Tony leapt on to a table and smashed an ashtray down on the top of a (quite frighteningly large) man.

“I mean, come on, you work in the fucking _geology department_ , what kind of person _does that?_ Disgusting ones, that’s who- get yourself a proper bachelor before you come trying to start anything with me, I’m a fucking _engineer_ , you assclown!” Tony continued to yell down at the man as he slumped to the floor, before someone else rugby-tackled him off the table and sent him crashing to the ground.

Instantly, Steve was sprinting across the room again, pushing people out of the way and colliding his shoulder with the unknown attacker, sending him flying across the room and into a wall, knocking them out cold immediately.

Tony looked up at Steve for a second, before grinning brightly and pushing himself up, wiping the blood off his mouth.

“Hey Steve, fancy seeing you here-“

“What the _damn hell_ is going on, Tony!” Steve shouted over the cacophony, pulling Tony upward and yanking them both back into the wall out of the main fight in order to check Tony over anxiously, making sure he was okay.

“Hey hey, Steve, I’m cool. Don’t worry, stand down soldier,” Tony said, bringing a hand up and placing it reassuringly on Steve’s shoulders as his eyes trailed over Tony’s body in concern.

“Tony. Explain. _Now_.” Steve gritted out, finally looking up at Tony’s messy face and feeling a growl form low in the back of his throat.

A glass was thrown at the wall just a few centimeters away from Tony’s face, and Steve was immediately pulling Tony down into his chest, an arm raising protectively to cover his head.

“Listen, listen Steve, I can explain, okay-“

“You fucking better, you said you started this whole thing-“

“Well, that’s not _really_ the case. I did throw the first punch, yeah, but it was very much justified.”

“What the hell justifies _all this_ , Tony?!”

“It was Hammer, and his gang of thugs, okay! They came in here, even though we all know Sam banned them from coming near. Said they were looking for someone who ‘did them wrong’, apparently. And yes,that was a direct quote, because for some reason they all think they're from the era of the cowboy." Tony rolled his eyes, and spared a glance at Steve, wondering if he'd cracked a smile at all.

He had not.

" _Anyway_ …" Tony said, when Steve made a circular motion with his hand that signalled for him to continue, "just so happened to be the brilliant woman I had been chatting to that evening, Jane Foster, you heard of her? She explained to me what had been going on- that they’d been trying to get her to improve the specs on one of Justin’s shitty weapon models, and she refused in a very…blunt way. In front of a lot of people. They weren’t happy- Hammer came back with his merry band of dickwads this evening, literally like twenty of them all crowding around me and her, demanding she came with them.”

Tony briefly paused, sticking out a leg as someone ran past and sending them careering off into a table. With an irritable sigh, Steve pulled Tony back and raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the story.

“Lord knows what they were gonna do to her, so I stepped up, right? Told them where they could shove it. Then one of Justin’s overly large buddies gets up in my face, starts saying some pretty gross stuff, and then makes a grab for Foster’s arm. _That’s_ when I punch him.”

Steve took a long breath, shutting his eyes and putting two fingers up the bridge of his nose.

“So you’re telling me… you decided it would be a good idea… to start a fight when you were outnumbered… _twenty to one?_ ” He asked shortly.

Tony grinned then, and nodded his head.

“Well, at first, yeah. But, you know, when a bunch of the roughest guys in the city all congregate into one bar, it catches people’s attention. You’ll never guess who showed up just as I was about to get my ass handed to me. Have a look at the some of the faces here,” Tony said, raising his eyebrows and jerking his head toward a particular person on their right.

Steve turned his head, and then felt his mouth fall open as he watched Peggy Carter slam a man’s head into a table and then roll over his bent form in order to smash the glass in her fist against another’s head.

“Yup. The Howling Commando’s, New York’s most notable vigilante gang and your old friends from high school. They brought along some helpers, too. Me, the Commando’s, and Sam and a few of his regulars are currently trying to drive Hammer’s merry men out of the doors and get Jane to safety, but they’ve currently got the whole place kinda surrounded.” Tony finished, grimacing in annoyance as he looked around the room.

From what Steve could see, the Commando’s and the regulars were holding their own, all of them brawling fiercely in the middle of the room, glass and chairs flying everywhere in the mayhem. He spotted the Foster woman, crouched underneath the bar counter as a girl with bright red hair and a look of death defended her fiercely, taking out each person that got near with a swift punch or intricate move that not even Steve’s trained eye could track. By the woman’s side, there was a man with ashy blonde hair who was throwing the glasses lined up on the rack at his targets with an uncanny accuracy, each one of them hitting their mark perfectly.

He saw Sam, working back to back with a man who looked as if he could squash you between his hands, long blonde hair flowing down on to his bulging shoulders as they worked and punched with ease.

With a sharp burst of happiness, he spotted Bucky, twisting in midair and roundhouse-kicking someone in the face, sending them flying toward Dum-Dum Dugan, who grabbed the stumbling body by the throat and pushed them out via the window.

He wanted to go up and hug each one of his old friends separately, ask them how they’d been since he’d left for college, whether they were getting by okay. He missed Bucky’s teasing and Peg’s lovely smile; the sharp tongue of Jacques and the booming laughter of Dugan’s.

But now probably wasn’t the time.

Steve looked back to Tony, who was standing back up and making to push himself back into the fight, and he let another growl rumble quietly in his throat as he grabbed on to Tony’s arm and held him in place.

“I’d tell you to keep out of it, but I know I would be more successful talking to a brick wall. So you’re gonna stick right by my side the whole damn time, you understand?” he ordered, keeping a firm grip on Tony’s wriggling arm as his friend glared sulkily back up at him.

“ _Fine._ Now let’s go kick some ass,” Tony said, yanking himself out of Steve’s grip and then using a table as a booster to literally throw himself back into the action.

With a harsh sigh, Steve followed, spotting someone with a deadly shard of glass creeping up on a man who was struggling to hold off an attack from someone else, and Steve quickly grabbed the hand in possession of the weapon, twisting to the point of breaking and then kicking the shard out of their grip before moving on to the next person with practiced ease.

To his left, Tony overturned a table and sent it toppling down on the shins of three different attackers, all of them letting out sudden cries of pain as the heavy table smacked into their knees. Steve grabbed Tony’s collar and yanked him back out of the path of a flying chair leg, and in turn, Tony used Steve’s shoulder to spin himself around and kick the person behind Steve in the stomach.

 _“Stevie?_ ” A sudden familiar voice called to him, and Steve grinned instinctively, his eyes wandering over to the familiar face that was staring at him from across a table.

“Hey Buck. Didn’t expect to see you here,” Steve said, raising a hand to deflect a punch to his face, but missing the bent leg that snapped out and caught him in the stomach, knocking the breath out of him.

He tumbled to the ground, and the assailant was on him instantly, a leg raised above his head and ready to smash down hard.

But before Steve could even raise his arms and brace himself, two bodies both simultaneously tackled the asshole to the ground, Tony diving for the legs and Bucky vaulting over the table and heading for the stomach. The result was that the poor girl got pulled in both directions, causing her to faceplant against the floor in a very ungraceful fashion.

“Yeah, when we got the tipoff that Hammer and co. were all gathering together and heading in the same direction, we guessed something might be up. Never expected to find you in the middle of it though- thought you said you were done with all that,” Bucky huffed, jumping back up to his feet and holding out an arm to Tony, who grabbed it gratefully and bounced back on to his feet again.

“Wait, Steve- you were a _Commando? Seriously?_ ” Tony asked incredulously.

“Yeah. Back when we were just a group of teenagers who hated bullies at school, though. I never pursued it; I wanted to go to college instead.” Steve explained, accepting the hands of both Bucky and Tony as they held one each out to him.

Bucky looked at Tony and then turned to Steve, raising a knowing eyebrow.

“I take it this is _the_ Tony Stark then? The guy you’re always on about?” He asked, and Steve almost got punched square in the jaw when he spluttered in embarrassment, feeling his cheeks burn red.

“You talk about me to your friends?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrows and giggling when Steve spluttered even more, and then took Bucky’s hand as he held it out in greeting.

“Bucky Barnes,”

“Tony Stark. Hi. Bit of unusual meeting circumstances, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.”

Steve watched his two best friends shake hands and grin at one another in the middle of one of the most intense bar fights he’d ever been in, and was about to point that out to them when suddenly he felt a hand grab at his shirt and tug him downward, sending him tumbling to the floor.

 _“Idiot._ What did I teach you about bar fights, you bloody moron? Never stop moving, there’s always a bastard with a glass waiting to throw it at your head,” Came Peggy’s voice next to him on the ground, and he felt her hand come to slap him over the head in annoyance.

“Nice to see you too, Pegs” Steve replied dryly, hopping back on to his feet and watching as Tony grabbed four or five glasses from the tables and rushed over to the blonde guy stood at the bar, handing them to him and grinning when the man tossed on in the air, caught it and then threw it at the wall, where shards exploded all over two different guys.

“ _Focus,_ dear, you won’t be able to look after him if you can’t even look after yourself,” Peggy warned, spinning around and left-hooking someone with deadly accuracy.

The fight raged on, and Steve watched in pride as he and his friends all slowly drove the attackers back, fighting and bleeding and laughing with one another as they fought together. He took a punch for the glass-throwing guy, who in turn sent a fork (he had run out of glass a few minutes previously) spinning directly into the arm of one of the people fighting Steve. At the bar, Tony and Bucky were working together; Tony crouched down low and doing something odd with some bent forks and a lot of wires as Bucky watched his six and made sure no-one got near.

It was painful and hard work- but when Tony finally leapt up and began running through the crowds with the Taser he had knocked up at the bar and stabbing it into people’s necks, the tide turned considerably in their favor, and soon every one of Justin Hammer’s gang had either run away or were lying unconscious on the floor.

Sam, The Howling Commandos, some of the regulars and Steve were the last ones standing, every one of them panting in exhaustion as they looked at the mayhem around them.

“Well I’m fucked.” Sam said suddenly, crossing his arms and looking around at what had once been his beautiful classy bar with a grim expression.

 

“That was… violent.” Jane said, peering up with wide eyes from her spot behind the counter and staring at the group of people around her.

The huge blond man that Steve had been watching earlier suddenly caught Jane’s eye, and Steve watched in bemusement as the man’s jaw dropped. A second later, he had slid over the counter and was crouched next her, pulling her into an embrace and holding her tight, much to Jane’s surprise at having a stranger tangle her up in a fierce hug.

“You think they’re gonna come back?” Dugan asked, speaking to the whole room in concern as he half-heartedly kicked at a body on the floor, who groaned in response and rolled over.

“Nah. I don’t think they’d dare,” Glass-throwing guy said, poking curiously at the deeply bleeding cut on his arm and then hissing as the redhead slapped his hand away and rolled her eyes at him.

Suddenly, Steve noticed the absence in the room, and he felt his heart stop for a few terrifying beats as he realized who it was.

“Have any of you seen Tony? Skinny short guy, dark hair, brown eyes, carrying the Taser and yelling ‘this is Sparta’ as he attacked everyone? That one?” Steve asked, jerking forward and looking around the room frantically for his friend.

Everyone turned their heads, searching the room for the missing person- until Redhead gave a shout and knelt down next to one of the many bodies on the floor, a hand immediately going to the pulse point in his neck and checking for the beat.

Steve felt like his stomach was going to drop right down into his shoes as he hurled himself on to the floor next to Tony and put his own two fingers against his neck, another hand cupping Tony’s jaw gently as he prayed for a pulse.

“urrrhggggghhhh,” Came the sudden groan from Tony’s mouth, as he rolled on to his side and winced in pain.

“ _Jesus fucking Christ_ , Tony, you _asshole_ ,” Steve breathed, letting out a choked laugh of relief as he pulled Tony up and into his arms, gripping the back of his head tightly and holding him close.

“S’rry. I think I caught myself on the Taser. My bad.” Tony mumbled into Steve’s shoulder, before pushing himself away and letting his own eyes flicker nervously over Steve’s body.

“You okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t exactly true. Tony had a pretty deep cut running right across his forehead, and there were bruises littered about his body. Steve didn’t look any better- in fact, all of them looked like they had been through the wars. Which, he supposed they probably had.

“Jheeze, okay, let’s ignore the lovebirds for a second. What about the rest of us? Anyone got any important injuries to mention?” Bucky asked, looking around the group of individuals in concern.

“I think I’m probably gonna pass the fuck out if I don’t wrap this cut up soon, but apart from that I’m okay. I’m sure if I let Lucky give it a lick it’ll be fine” Glass-Throwing Guy said.

“I’m pretty sure something stabbed me somewhere. But it’s cool, I’ll sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning,” James Morita muttered, and Dugan gave a low rumbling laugh at that, slapping his friend on the shoulder and then apologizing when Morita groaned in pain.

“I know a guy who’ll patch you up no-questions-asked. Not a hospital guy, just someone working for his doctorate. Bruce Banner- great dude, fixes me up all the time. He can stitch you up for free if you want. Least I can do really, for dragging you all into this,” Tony said, his head resting on Steve’s shoulder as they both sat tangled up together on the floor.

There were murmurs of agreement around them, and Redhead opened her mouth to say something when suddenly the sound of police cars drifted through the smashed windows, and everyone stopped still.

“Oh, fucking _fuckballs_ ,” Dugan cursed, looking to the door.

Everyone looked at one another, and then without saying a word, they all jumped to attention at once, everyone making their way to the back entrance outside, Sam guiding them all as they hurried out.

“Blondie, Jane, you’re gonna have to cover for us. Tell them you and Sam all hid under the bar whilst the fight went down, and you didn’t see anything. Sam, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to hack your video feed and wipe it- I’m not gonna let these people get into trouble because of me.” Tony said, as Steve pushed him out of the door and into the back corridor.

“Everyone split up, okay? Hopefully they won’t have the place surrounded already- but how about we all meet up on the grounds outside Sam’s tomorrow? I for one am gonna want that free medical checkup, plus, I don’t know some of your names. I’ve been calling you bull’s-eye in my head for ten minutes now.” Dugan told them all, turning to point at who Steve had been dubbing as Glass-Throwing Guy and then pushing him out the door, watching as the man began to jog off with Redhead right behind him.

“The name’s Clint. But I kinda like Bull’s-eye, actually.” He shouted, jogging backwards and then yelling indignantly when Redhead shoved him forward and sent him stumbling.

“Shut up. You nickname is Birdbrain, nothing else will suffice. And also, my name’s Natasha.” Redhead said, pausing to give them one last wave, before taking Glass-Throwing Guy’s- no, wait, _Clint’s_ arm and running off into the darkness.

The Commando’s were next, all of them beginning to sprint in the opposite direction toward the dark alleys, Bucky stopping briefly to give Steve a tight hug and Tony another firm handshake before following on, waving an arm behind him.

“Keep Steve outta trouble until I see him again, Stark!” He called out, and then he was gone, vanishing into the shadows without another sound in a way that had tony whistling in awe.

“Guys, time to go. I’ll hold them here for as long as I can, try get a safe distance from here though, stay away from the cameras down the road.” Sam warned them, pushing them further out into the darkness and beginning to shut the door.

“Thanks, Sam.” Steve said earnestly, and he got a final mischievous grin before the door shut.

They could hear the sirens were far closer now, and a few people were yelling on the other side of the building. Tony took Steve’s hand, pulling him forward with urgency up the road, both of them running in the shadows as they left the scene behind them.

Steve turned, watching Tony as they ran; his hair flying all over the place as they sped along the quiet streets, eyes glinting in excitement and an adrenaline-fuelled high. Tony turned to look at him, his face suddenly breaking out into a huge grin that cracked the caked blood on his cheek, his hand tightening over Steve’s.

And suddenly they were both laughing. Loud, obnoxious, uncontainable laughter that they didn’t have a hope of controlling.

“Sh-sh- _shut up_. We’re g-gonna g-g-get caught, asshole!” Steve hissed, before bursting out into a fit of giggles that caused him to stop in the middle of the street and bend over double, sucking in deep breaths to try and calm himself down.

“Steve. Stevie. Steven. I think… I think we just br-broke about- fifty different laws. We’re fucking _criminals_. Oh God,” Tony muttered, before snorting loudly and joining Steve, falling to his knees and leaning against Steve as he chuckled.

“It’s 2:20, goddamnit. This has got to be a dream. It’s too fucking surreal. Did I seriously just team up with a bunch of strangers and my old highschool pals to fight evil? No. This has- this has to b-b-be a dream, Jesus _Christ,_ ”

And they were off again.

It was probably the shock. All that adrenaline running through their systems, making them act like lunatics as they fell over themselves laughing in the middle of the street at some ridiculously early hour in the morning.

It was almost certainly the shock. But Steve was looking at Tony, and he honestly couldn’t think of any reason not to kiss him, right there.

So he did.

Tony felt nice pressed against him like this. Soft and warm and comforting, like a safety blanket Steve had no idea he’d needed until he was here, with Tony’ mouth on his, and now he couldn’t imagine himself without it.

Except Tony was sort of frozen, and he wasn’t kissing back, so Steve drew away, feeling the beginnings of complete mortification creeping up as he realized what he’d done- that he’d just fucked up one of the best relationships he’d ever had in a moment of stupidity-

Tony jerked into life suddenly, throwing himself back into Steve’s arms so forcefully they were both bowled over, Steve landing with his back on the floor and Tony on top, kissing the life out of him, his hands running through the blond strands of hair and legs wrapping around his hips as he pressed his lips feverishly against Steve’s mouth, so much emotion being poured through the kiss that Steve was momentarily overwhelmed, simply holding on to Tony by the small of his back and trying to keep it together.

“Oh my God Steve, that was a bad idea on your part,” Tony muttered in between pressing kisses against Steve’s mouth, “give me an inch and I’ll take a fucking _mile_ , you know me. Ugh, you’ve no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,”

Steve pushed up against Tony, grabbing wildly at his collar and pulling him down again, kissing the words out of his mouth and leaving nothing more than a groan of happiness in Tony’s mouth.

“I fucking love you, holy shit Steve, I’m sorry if that’s a shock to you, but I really _really_ fucking do, I can’t fucking keep hiding that fact any more, I loved you pretty much since the moment I set eyes on your damn face, and you never… you never looked twice at me. I was okay with that, sort of, not really but i dealt with it. I can't do that anymore,not after this-“

Steve paused, his brain trying to go over the words he had just heard.

_I love you_

He…hadn’t been expecting that. When Tony’s mouth had met his own, he had been content taking whatever he could get…but he’d never expected this.

_I love you._

He suddenly realized that the pressure against his chest had let up, and tony had raised himself off Steve for a moment, looking down in sadness.

“That’s not what you wanted to hear, is it?”

 

Tony waited for a few seconds as Steve dissolved into a fit of intense laughter again, before hitting him on the arm and bringing him back to earth. He focused his gaze back on Tony, who was looking so adorably confused; Steve just had to kiss that little pout all over again, just because _he could_.

“Tony. Tony, oh god, I d-d-d-“ He snorted again, before sitting up and pressing a kiss to Tony’s nose.

“Right. I’m going to get through this without bursting out with laughter, because it’s a very serious matter and all this adrenaline is not doing a very good job of keeping me calm. But Tony… I don’t answer my phone after 12. I don’t. _Ever_.”

Tony cocked his head and squinted his eyebrows, gesturing for Steve to continue.

“You rung me at 2 am. Tony, _I never answer my phone after 12_. And yet, I see your number on my screen, and it’s like… no normal rules apply when I’m with you. For Christ’s Sake, I just committed a _felony_ for you- I would literally do pretty much anything to see your sorry ass happy. I’m so embarrassingly in love with you. I have been for- God -for maybe two and three quarter years?”

Tony’s jaw did the same thing that Blondie had done when he’d laid eyes on Jane for the first time, dropping open numbly as his eyes glazed over and he looked at Steve with a sort of morbid horror in his eyes that definitely didn’t calm his rattled nerves.

Tony groaned after a few seconds, breaking the trance and slumping in to Steve’s shoulder, sending them both to the floor again as he continued to whine into Steve’s skin theatrically.

“Oh Lord. 2-and-three-quarter years. We could’ve been dating for _2-and-three-quarter years,_ if we’d have pulled our heads out of our asses for a fucking second. Oh my God. I hate everything. I fu-fucking-“

And then Tony started laughing. _Again._

Steve was going to tell him to pull himself together and take it seriously, but unfortunately he became rather distracted when his own manic laughter took over once more, and he simply gripped Tony’s waist as they both broke down into uncontainable giggles on the pavement at 2am, feeling Tony’s mouth on his bare shoulder and the fucking freezing cold ground underneath him, every sensation prickling with a hundred times more definition than it had two minutes ago.

He wanted to kiss Tony again. So he did.

“Your apartment is like, twenty seconds away if we run. Lets go, go, go,” Tony said suddenly, smacking him on the arm and leaping up from his position on top of Steve, much to his dismay.

Steve remained on the floor, folding his arms stubbornly and pouting at the lack of warmth around his middle from where Tony had left.

“Um, no, I don’t put out until the third date. You know that.”

“We have _2 and three quarter years_ worth of sex to make up for, Steve. Come on, we gotta start now, we’re very far behind schedule.”

“Have you taken me on three dates yet?”

“I’ve taken you on like, 900.”

“Discounted on the grounds that we were not dating at that time.”

“Steeeeeve, you’re being pedantic. No one likes a pedantic.”

Steve rolled his eyes and sat up, feeling the pain in his back for the first time with a wince of dismay. No doubt he’d been impaled by something or other- that was going to be fun to deal with in the morning.

“Fine. You can come home with me. BUT- no sex. Your flat is ages away, so I’m simply being nice. I will accept cuddling and making out as thanks for my generosity.” Steve agreed, jumping to his feet and holding out a hand to Tony with a huge grin on his face as Tony took it with a roll of his eyes and a blush on his cheeks.

“ _Fine_. I guess that is… acceptable.” Tony conceded, pulling them forward into the warmth of Steve’s building.

As they reached Steve’s door, he watched as Tony suddenly paused, eyes widening a little as he stood in the threshold.

“Is this serious? Are you for real? Did you…you meant it, right?” He asked quietly.

In reply, Steve pulled Tony into his arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then his cheek, then a soft, feather-light one on his lips, before wrapping his arms tightly around Tony’s body and clutching him tightly against his chest.

“Always,” Steve mumbled, placing one last kiss against the tangled dark hair, before falling backward and landing on the bed, Tony tumbling in right along with him.

Steve realized with a last huff of laughter, that there was no way this could be a dream.  
He simply didn’t have the imagination to make something this good up.


End file.
